The Walking Dead Lawsuit

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Robert Kirkman sued by original series artist Tony Moore.

By Joey Esposito

In the midst of a week that's seen a lot of discussion about creator rights in comics, THR dropped the bomb that co-creator of The Walking Dead, Tony Moore, is suing writer Robert Kirkman over claims that Kirkman "swindled" him out of profits and residuals owed to him from the property.

THR obtained a copy of the official report, which said, "Each of these works was prepared by [Moore] and Kirkman with the intention that their contributions be merged into inseparable or independent parts of a unitary whole. [Moore] and Kirkman were thus joint authors and co-owners of the copyrights in these works."

Apparently, Moore signed away his portion of the copyright to Kirkman in 2005 in a bid that Kirkman claimed was to move forward with "a big TV deal." The artist claims that Kirkman fraudulently gained the copyrights from him in order to get out of paying any royalties. As co-creator of the series, the report says he should be entitled to 50% of the copyright.

Moore and Kirkman launched The Walking dead comic in 2003, with Moore drawing the first six issues before the interior art duties moved to current artist Charlie Adlard.

Update:Robert Kirkman has issued a statement on the lawsuit, saying, "The lawsuit is ridiculous, we each had legal representation seven years ago and now he is violating the same contract he initiated and approved and he wants to misrepresent the fees he was paid and continues to be paid for the work he was hired to do. Tony regularly receives payment for the work he did as penciler, inker and for gray tones on the first six issues of The Walking Dead comic series and he receives royalties for the TV show, to assert otherwise is simply incorrect."